


Pawned

by silver_ring5



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-19
Updated: 2014-07-19
Packaged: 2018-02-09 11:43:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1981725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silver_ring5/pseuds/silver_ring5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aiba Masaki owns a pawn shop, and Ninomiya Kazunari is for sale there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pawned

Nino woke with a jolt, and a hiss escaped his lips and his joints creaked as he forced himself into a sitting position. The sun burned his eyes, and he took several seconds to adjust before he could see properly. Nino didn’t remember falling asleep outside, he must have pushed himself farther than he’d thought-- but Nino had a tendency to do that lately. Push his limits to see how far he could go before he fell.

Aiba hated it. He told Nino time and time again to stop it. “Knock that off Nino,” he’d say, and he’d follow it up with, “You might not wake up next time, and then where would I be?”

“You’d be out a lot of money,” Nino would smirk, and Aiba would smile that lopsided grin that always melted the hearts of the people who entered his shop. See, because Aiba Masaki owned the pawn shop off Main Street, the one with the green, holographic awning and the flashing letters that sometimes read “Pawn Shop” and other times read “Paw Shop” (just because he wanted them to).

And Nino was for sale there.

Nino was expensive though. He was a high-grade model with extensive custom-modifications and exclusive factory upgrades, because of which, he was both a desirable piece of merchandise and out of most patron’s budgets… But that being said, Nino wasn’t the newest model on the market, and he was used.

Used androids sometimes proved to be risky purchases, despite their competitive prices, and Nino found himself still wearing the shop’s security collar nearly seven months after he’d been pawned.

Not that he was a risky purchase, he wasn’t. Aiba told everyone who showed interest. Nino was more than ready to serve a new owner, whoever that may be, to the best of his high-functioning abilities.

Brushing off the dust that had settled on his clothes, Nino took one last look at the sky. He looked just towards the East, where the planet’s skylock was, just in case a certain ship might be entering through there…. But it wasn’t. There wasn’t even a ship waiting outside the planet’s shield.

Nino sighed, the sound richly authentic and almost human, before he started back into the shop. He could try to sneak in and hope that Aiba wouldn’t realize he’d slept outside again instead of powering down at his charging station, but Nino knew that was pointless. When he pulled open the door, it jingled. It jingled even though it was a back door because every door in Aiba’s shop jingled when you opened it. When Aiba had downloaded the Shop Bell app onto the store, he had decided to apply it not only to the front door, but to every door in the building.

Nino deeply disliked it, and he would change the settings whenever he got the chance. Aiba had told him after the fiftieth time of turning the jingles back on that Nino was forcing him to lock the modem for administrator’s only…. and Nino had responded by hacking the system moments later.

The jingles became an ongoing battle.

 

“Nino…..” Aiba’s voice met him immediately, “Out all night again? Really?”

Aiba shook his head, and Nino didn’t bother to meet his eyes. He didn’t want to know what Aiba was feeling right then.

“It was an accident.”

“You have to knock that off, Nino,” Aiba muttered, moving closer to sling an arm around Nino’s shoulders, “What would I do if you powered-out?”

“You’d be out a lot of mon--” Nino started but was cut off by Aiba grabbing both of his arms.

“You’re freezing cold, Nino!” Aiba almost shouted, eyes wide, “You need to warm up. Come on, get to the heater.”

Aiba’s hand fit around Nino’s thin arm easily as he drug the icy android to the front of the store where the space heater was. Nino wasn’t built for physical labor, not really, so his body was rather slight and not especially tall while Aiba, a full-blooded ningen, was tall and lanky with long limbs.

Nino envied him sometimes, wondering if he’d had that body type, would he have fulfilled the needs of his first owner better? But that was a needless worry because no upgrade would change his form, and he couldn’t go back in time anyway. His first owner was done with him, and Nino couldn’t do anything about it, even if he wanted to.

“Was it worth it?” Aiba muttered, not reprimanding because he wasn’t that kind of guy, but rather curious and somewhat sad, “Did you see anything you wanted in the stars?”

“Nah,” Nino replied, cracking a smile, “Nothing but constellations mapped out for human wishes… They don’t seem to hear mine.”

“They don’t hear mine either, Ninomi,” Aiba chuckled, “They don’t hear mine, either.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to finish Mannequin before I work more on this one (I think), but I'm writing a lot lately so hopefully this fic will be updated soon. Please leave me a comment <3


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